Media Agrees: Fowler Should Shut-Up

Despite a few stragglers still fighting the Lee Fowler battle on the Pack Pride Message Boards, the overwhelming majority of ‘advice’ to “Coach Fowler” seem to be in significant agreement with our perspective #1 and our perspective #2.

Tonight we have learned that even ‘impartial’ observers are in agreement with our advice.

As if SFN wasn’t surprised enough that we were in such agreement with 850 The Buzz – (to be fair, we tend to agree with the more level headed perspective of the blog than the ratings driven, contrived ramblings of the daily talk radio format) – imagine our HORROR when we found out that Bob Lee Swagger (Tarheel homer and Dennis Rogers wanna be) was offering appropriate advice as well. God forgive me for providing this link:

You folks know I like Lee Fowler. He is a darn fine fellow….I do so wish he would have asked my advice Friday BEFORE he went and sent that â€œopen letterâ€? to the WuffNation. I would have told him â€œnot until pigs fly and Chuck wears a size 36 sportcoatâ€?. Yes, he posted â€œitâ€? on GoPack.com (the Official NCSU sports website) but within a nano second it was all over packpride.com and the various other cyber clubhouses for the concrete colon crowd.

No coach or administrator should EVER acknowledge his fanbaseâ€™s Lunatic Fringe. NEVER! Those wretched souls spend their lives being totally ignored in the “real world”. They are quite used to and comfortable with baying at an imaginary moon. The mere thought that anyone but other lepers in the colony hear them is inconceivable. And now Lee Fowler reaches out to them asking them to group hug and sing Kumbaya Chuckie.

Lee might as well have walked thru broken glass barefoot then gone wading in a piranha pool. Actually the Wuff Loonies were gnawing the flesh from his bones QUICKER than a school of piranhas. Within minutes the %$#& Fowler posts had outnumbered the illegal procedure penalties in a typical Wuffpack first quarter. It was a variation of Groucho Marxâ€™s line about â€œI would not join any club that would have me as a memberâ€?. No self-loathing Wuff Loonie could respect an AD that stooped to loonie level.

Specifically Lee was politely admonishing â€œhis fellow suffering wolfpackersâ€? for their verbal disrespect for Chuckâ€™s picture on the Jumbotron. That was his original mistake. For all his pratfalls and all the times heâ€™s stepped ankle deep in Ramses droppings, Little Dickie ainâ€™t NEVER considered putting a 40â€™ visage of any UNC coach or Administrator on Kenanâ€™s Jumbotron. In fact Kenanâ€™s Jumbo came with a â€œDickie and Meezie filterâ€?. It wouldnâ€™t show their faces even if some evil saboteur would try and program it. NO, I have NOT tried it.

So, how does Lee Fowler plan to heed the advice?

Well, he’s added a radio interview on 850 The Buzz Thursday afternoon to Wednesday’s previously scheduled speech at the Raleigh Sports Club on Wednesday. No word yet if Regis & Kelly have taken him up on anything for Friday.

It could be that Julius would prefer that Lee Fowler tend to his own business.

Lee all too often takes the tack that NCSU fans are the enemy, a buch of fifty lunatics, or that they do not know good coaching when they see it. He was lucky last year when Herb Sendek turned things around, because in mid-February the natives were ready to throw him into the hot-water cauldron along with Coach Sendek.

Now comes Amato and the same old same old from last year: missed chances, a penlaty ranking very near the worst in NCAA football, and iffy QB play. Fans, rightly so, are upset — especially those who dug into their wallets and ponied up more than $75/ticket for a game after the LTR fee, the ticket price, parking and everything else were added in. The fans are upset not so much at the losses, frustrating as they are, but instead at the WAY the team has lost. This finally boiled over into boos for the coach, and for some of the players against Clemson.

So what does Fowler do? He ratchets things up and draws attention to the matter buy offering lessons in sportsmanship to the fans who felt the need to boo. Apparently, it never occurred to him that not only would they not listen but that they would be emboldened by his taking note of their raucous razzing.

Compare and contrast that to Lee Fowler’s utter silence regarding the fans and the so-called chant (that never happened) towards Chris Paul last year.

Lee Fowler knew as well as anyone else that never happened the way that the N&O portrayed it, but instead of defending the good name of over 15,000 Wolfpack fans in attendance Lee did…something else…nothing, actually.

“Compare and contrast that to Lee Fowlerâ€™s utter silence regarding the fans and the so-called chant (that never happened) towards Chris Paul last year.”

To be fair, that is not exactly true. Fowler investigated the situation, talked to the N&O about it, and also talked to the Wake AD about it as well. He made statements to the press about it, and he was also almost on the court (angrily) when the incident happened. I think he also prevented Hodge’s brother from getting tossed that game.

That’s true, but it was several days coming. Meanwhile, the fans were being taken to task. Fowler was here, he heard what was being said, or more specifically, not being said, and by how many. For a man that loves the media, his quiet lasted too long in that case.

Finally, he almost got onto the court due to the smack, not the smack that wasn’t talked in the stands.

“Look at how Joe Aleva at Duke handles criticism and compare and contrast the way it is done here.”

What criticism has Aleva had to endure? Duke football is suppose to stink, and it does. Duke basketball is suppose to be Top 5, and it is.

If NC State football were 4-1 right now, I personally dont think Fowler would have been on 850 or 680. Others will disagree. He certainly would not have written the “open letter,” which was huge mistake. However, other respected ADs (Terry Holland at ECU for instance) often write open letters to their fans bases.

I do find it funny that 850 tells Fowler to “stop talking” (I agree), but then asks him to appear on Adam Gold’s daily show.

As it relates to Holland, the primary difference is that he is 100% new and is in the process of addressing issues, setting his table, and setting a direction & tone for his program.

To be consistent in the comparison, Fowler was even more visible than Holland in his first 6 months despite having significantly less actionable events. Terry Holland has fired and hired both his basketball coach, football coach, and recently his baseball coach. OF COURSE you are going to hear from him in those times. In 5 years Lee Fowler hasn’t done anything remotely like Holland has done in 6 months, yet we’ve heard from him with equivalent frequency.

In the paraphrased words of Lloyd Bentsen, “Lee Fowler is no Terry Holland.”